Sissel was granted special powers of the dead when he passed over into the afterlife. With them, he had the ability to possess the recently deceased and rewind time to 4 minutes before their death. Once there he could manipulate certain objects in order to alter their once tragic fate. Those saved by Sissel would retain their memory of the event and would develop a special bond with him as a result. Little did he realize though; there are those who get quite a thrill in finding loopholes.

So I beat Ghost Trick a little while back and was pretty impressed with it overall. I like the play system, the story and music are awesome, and the sprite animation is absolutely stunning and mesmerizing. If you own a DS you really need to pick up this title. I would say Capcom needs to produce more games like this, but I wonder who would be in charge of such endeavors now that Inafune and most of their other most notable talent is gone. I'm sure there are tons of insanely talented people at Capcom, but it seems like the upper management types are constraining the game makers too much. When their big dogs like Inafune (Mega Man), Mikami (RE), Kamiya (DMC), and Inaba (VJ, Okami) to name a few leave, it's basically a big indication that they are tired of fighting the business guys to get good stuff made.

Speaking of Capcom, I'm pretty pissed off at their latest shenanigans. Get this; they decided that they would not produce MM Legends 3 unless a certain number of people BUY the DEMO. That's right, unless enough fans pay roughly $2.50 each for a DEMO, they won't make the game. There is no word whether or not this will apply to the actual purchase of the game, but considering the games "greenlit" status hinges on "heat and excitement" (read: Capcom management jargon for sales), it isn't looking too likely.

So let me get this straight. We are seeing less and less new IPs being developed for current gen consoles because of the astronomical, self imposed, development costs. Most of the new stuff is on handheld systems in order to mitigate perceived potential losses because most big companies are looking at profit margin before making top-notch products. I can understand this business model and accept it as I have enjoyed a number of killer titles on the DS. But now Capcom is saying that isn't enough!? We need to buy a god damn demo for you to grow the cojones to release the third iteration of an established MM themed game?!

Fuck you Capcom and fuck that business practice. I hope MML3 rots on the development room floor so you and other big developers don't get the idea that those shenanigans are acceptable.

Why is it so hard for business people to plan for success and allow the creators the room to breathe that they need? Too much corporate control and you get Squeenix and Capcom, too little and you are stuck with 3D Realms. Surely there is a happy medium out there.... That's odd; I swore heard the name Nintendo being whispered to me through the breeze.

Okay, I'm done ranting! Despite a very bossy fortune cookie and the fact that we got another Bonus Stage out this week, we somehow amazingly got this Ghost Trick comic into your virtual hands in a somewhat timely manner. It's funny to think that we would have had no issue making it on time if we didn't do the bonus stage, but that's just not good enough.

Thanks for being patient with us as we continue to grow and we'll see you again on Wednesday!

My brother mentioned to me a few days ago that Phantasy Star Online 2 was in development. After doing some research and seeing the title, I kinda recall reading the news long ago but had completely forgotten about it. My brother told me that he heard Sega was going back to using many mechanics of the original game which made me really happy and excited because though Phantasy Star Universe, PSO's successor and the archetype of the Phantasy Star Portable series, was fun for a while, it was severely missing the insanely addictive element that the original one had.

Phantasy Star Online is such a weird game. It seems so limited considering that episodes one and two only had seven stages total and there weren't many options for character customization, for some reason a lot of people I know and myself just couldn't get enough of it. It was always exciting and fun to play with friends, level, and hope that along your journey you'd get a new piece of useful gear. My addiction for that game lasted for years.

Like I said, I was really excited to hear the news from my brother and ended up finding new screenshots posted by Sega the next day. I excitingly told Bear about the news and screenshots and he responded by telling me not to get my hopes up and asked when I last remember Sega and Sonic Team releasing something great. He got me there. Though I think Sonic Colors for the Wii and NDS were supposed to be decent, I think Sega's been pretty bad at trying to revive their old popular franchises, Sonic being a strong example. It sucks that the first thing that came to my mind at Sega's announcement of their new Sonic game, Sonic Generations, was "sigh, not again..." I admit that I've never been a huge Sonic fan, but I was enough of one to feel a bit sorry that Sonic's gone through so many fallings. I hope this one is as good as it looks.

A trailer of PSO2's been released to the public and though it's interesting seeing new features such as jumping and "custom combos," I didn't see any of the trademark fun PSO elements like Mags, chests/boxes on the field, nor the ole' timed attack combos. I know the game is still being finalized and is in its alpha phase, but I can't help to feel a bit disappointed now feeling that it'll probably be another Phantasy Star Universe.

So it's 2am. Pie and I are exhausted trying to get the next LiA done before we go to bed. We don't want to go to bed because if we do it means the comic will end up getting posted at sometime around noon or even later. Sure, it's still kinda on time, but it's not good enough.

Anyways, we decide to get some late dinner leftovers of Chinese food before getting back to work. We don't go out often, so we decided to splurge tonight.

So what do you know, I open up my fortune cookie that came with the meal and find that someone must be toying with me. Pie and I laughed for a good while after seeing it. I decided to share it with you all in the only way I know how, by using my superior kindergarten artistic skills to express myself.

Enjoy!

*morning edit* Yeah, so we passed out sometime around 4am. We set the alarm for an hour nap, but I'm notoriously bad about waking up after short naps these days. We're back in the saddle and should be done around noon -.-

Check back or watch our FB / Twitter accounts to know when the comic goes live. I really need to get RSS setup. Happy Friday everyone!